Ten mantras for young entrepreneurs

Nitin’s introduction: Why should young professionals become entrepreneurs?

I strongly believe it is a great time to be an entrepreneur today in India and all of you should consider this path. There are at least 5 reasons why I believe so:

1. Technology disruption is creating unprecedented new opportunities. The velocity of technology change and business disruption we are witnessing is perhaps unprecedented in human history. Mobile, Ecommerce, cloud, big data, have changed consumer behaviours and business models dramatically, and yet these trends are barely fifteen years old. We are now into the next phase of technology, with artificial intelligence, machine learning and the internet of things dominating. Technology change is a great equalizer. Big companies don’t have an advantage at leveraging technology change, often they are at a disadvantage. Smart entrepreneurs are best placed to experiment and leverage new technology. We have seen with the example of Flipkart, Paytm, MakeMyTrip and Ola how you can leverage new technology (Ecommerce) to create a huge business in less than 10 years. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
2. It accelerates personal growth. If you are ambitious and want to change the world then entrepreneurship is the path for you. Pursuing your own idea provides a great sense of ownership and independence, which is difficult to find in a job. It creates a sense of purpose and energy that helps you grow as a person and achieve things which will be impossible in a standard job. I meet many young entrepreneurs and always get amazed at how much they have grown and matured in a short period of time. In addition to personal growth there is off course the opportunity for life-changing wealth creation. Jobs today pay well but nothing compared to the wealth you can create through a successful venture.
3. There is availability of risk capital and an entrepreneurial ecosystem. A positive development in India over the past 15 years is the development of the venture capital industry and entrepreneurial ecosystem. Capital is now available for each step of the entrepreneurial journey, even for very early stage ideas. This makes it easier for young professionals to pursue their ideas without betting on the hard-earned money of their parents. Capital also helps them scale up their ideas rapidly. Most importantly, there is development of an active entrepreneurial ecosystem where experienced entrepreneurs and professionals are themselves investing into ventures and are available for mentoring and support.
4. The cost of failure is not high. My parents’ generation saw a lot of hardship and was very risk averse. These conservative mindsets have historically permeated in our society and acted as a deterrent for taking risks. However, the India of today is very different. The cost of failure is low. I have already mentioned the availability of risk capital. Even more importantly, there are abundant opportunities and company mindsets have changed. An individual whose start-up has failed is not frowned upon. In fact, failure is increasingly seen as a positive experience. I have seen it in my own example. I did my venture ActiveKarma in 2000-02. The venture failed but I was able to bounce back very quickly. In fact, a lot of what I have achieved in my corporate career is because of the invaluable learnings from ActiveKarma.

You can make a contribution to the country. India’s biggest asset is its age pyramid. Almost half the population of 1.35 billion is below the age of 25. However, this also presents a massive challenge of job creation. Government and the public sector will never be able to create the required number of jobs. It needs massive entrepreneurial activity to create jobs. Moreover, entrepreneurs can create world-beating success ideas and companies and put India on the world map. IT and BPM industry, which was driven by first generation entrepreneurs has done that very successfully over the past 20 years. Opportunity is there for Indian entrepreneurs to rise and dominate in many more sectors.Passion for your idea. Entrepreneurship is a tough journey and there will be many moments when you might feel like giving up. It is this passion for your idea, a sense of mission that will keep you going. Moreover, entrepreneurship is a journey into the unknown. When you are creating something new it is difficult to be clear about your strategy and plans at all stages. Your passion and mission will give you direction in moments of uncertainty. For example, Flipkart has a clear and strong mission, “transforming lives of a billion Indians through technology”. While the Flipkart strategy might have kept changing over the past 10 years, this mission has provided a strong anchor and inspiration for the organisation.

Route to clients. Customers are the lifeline for any business and this is even more critical for a startup. You might have a great concept or product but if you can’t get clients your business will never take off. That is why you really need to think back from a client perspective on what real needs you are looking to solve and will the client pay for it versus thinking about a business idea just from your perspective. For a B2B business, your first few clients might come based on your relationships. While for a B2C business the key consideration is customer segmentation and targeting. You will not be able to be everything to everyone, certainly not in the early stages of your business.

Audacity. Audacity is the willingness to take bold risks.To build something new especially in a new or changing industry, you cannot be incremental. You have to think big, take bold risks and believe you can change the world. The great Steve Jobs famously said, “those who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world are the ones who actually do so!!” This is a key success factor for successful entrepreneurs across generations. This is certainly true for this generation’s superstars like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Jack Ma and a key factor behind their companies astounding success. This is also the quality that makes companies like Flipkart and Ola dream big and take on giants like Amazon and Uber.

Innovation. Innovation is the foundation of a start-up, the key value an entrepreneur brings. To drive innovation, deep customer understanding is key. You need to have an intimate understanding of their pain points. Most powerful innovation often happens by connecting the dots across different areas. This was the unique strength of the great Steve Jobs. He was able to connect the dots across his many life experiences and passions to create many market defining innovations. iPod was a celebrated example where his passion for music, technology and design all came together. The other key requirement for innovation is deep product-tech expertise. As we have discussed earlier, technology disruption is the most defining feature of the world we are living in and at the heart of breakthrough opportunities for entrepreneurs. So, will encourage you to learn and build deep engineering expertise.

Your Team. We are in an increasingly complex environment where it is almost impossible for any individual, however talented, to have all the skills required to build a successful business on his own. Therefore, it is very important for an entrepreneur to build an effective team.It is important that from a skills perspective you bring together people who have complementary skills. Most successful partnerships have been of leaders who had such complementary skills. For example, Bill Gates – Paul Allen at Microsoft, Steve Jobs – Steve Wozniak at Apple, Larry Page – Sergey Brin at Google, and nearer home, the team of Infosys founders.

Funding. It is critical that you secure adequate funding sooner than later for your venture. While the power of your idea and team are the most important determinants of success of your venture, lack of funding is the factor that can take you to failure immediately and irreversibly. Many entrepreneurs try to time the market or to delay funding to maximize value. Don’t delay raising funding; secure the future of your venture first. If your venture survives and thrives, you will create enough personal value for yourself. If it gets strangled for funds and dies, your high ownership of the venture will not help. Another point of funding is that the questioning you face in the process also helps you sharpen your idea, improving your chances of success. A final point on funding, while raising too much capital can be a problem (can lead to inefficient use of funds), make sure you raise adequate capital required to scale up and fight the competition.

Patience and Resilience. Youneed to have the patience to play for the long-term and resilience to bounce back. Deep passion for the idea and sense of purpose inspire you to see the long-term and help you ride through the short-term challenges. It helps you value and enjoy the daily journey and not be obsessed about outcomes. It is important to have anchors in life outside of work. They give you strength, help you see the big picture of life and bounce back from disappointments. For example, my anchors are my family, spirituality (Meditation + Bhagavad Gita) and sports. These anchors have made me resilient and helped bounce back from the many challenges I have faced.

Communication & Networking. It is very important that you as an entrepreneur are able to tell your story passionately, clearly and repetitively. You need to do so to sell your idea to investors, to attract talent to join your team, and most importantly to convince customers. And, you have to do so multiple times over because you will not succeed in any of the above three tasks the first time around. Nobody else can tell your story with the authenticity and power that you can do so yourself. You cannot delegate this to anybody else.You will also need to become a master networker. In today’s interconnected world, you will have to build a web of partnerships – with customers, suppliers, investors, advisors and mentors. For this you have to be proactive and learn to reach out.

Humility. World is changing so fast that you can never sit back on your laurels and allow hubris to settle in. Arrogance is a sure shot recipe for failure. A strong trait of a successful entrepreneur is that he/she approaches life as a student. We meet people we learn, we read something we learn, we watch a movie we learn, we have any experience we learn. If one is not humble, one will not learn. Who does not learn will not succeed. This has never been truer.

Managing opposites. This is a philosophical point but a very important one. In the complex and fast evolving business environment today, you need to build the ability to manage many opposites. You need to have very sharp execution focus; at the same time, you need to be strategic. You need to survive in the short-term while also need to build for the long-term. You need to ensure outstanding customer experience and growth while also ensuring profitability. These opposites can become difficult to manage; however, they are inevitable. It is important that you recognise this and build your mental ability to balance these opposites.

Nitin’s conclusion:

I hope the above insights inspire you to pursue your entrepreneurial journey with even more passion and clarity. The time to start your journey is now, so go forth with hope and energy and let a thousand flowers bloom. This is the best possible journey you can take for yourself and for the country.

I will end with the famous quote by the great Steve Jobs, ‘Those who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world are the ones who actually do so!’ So, go forth and shine on, you crazy diamonds!

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